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Chris Caron edited this page Nov 16, 2022 · 5 revisions

Mastodon Notifications

Account Setup

Sign up for any Mastodon based service. Here are a few you can choose from today.

In the Settings of your account, you can access the Development tab and create an Application. This is what Apprise will use to send your notifications.

At the bare minimum you need to grant the following scopes on your application:

  • write:statuses: So Apprise can post a message
  • write:media: So Apprise can send an attachment
  • read:accounts: If you want to be able to send a DM to yourself

Note: If you change/add/remove scope entries associated with your Mastodon Application, you MUST regenerate your Access Token or your app will not take in effect the scope changes.

After you create your Application, revisit it's configuration as it will now provide you with a key, secret, and access_token. You ONLY need the Access Token to have Apprise work.

Syntax

Valid syntax is as follows:

  • mastodon://{token}@{host}
  • mastodons://{token}@{host}
  • toot://{token}@{host}
  • toots://{token}@{host}
  • mastodon://{token}@{host}/{targets}
  • mastodons://{token}@{host}/{targets}
  • toot://{token}@{host}/{targets}
  • toots://{token}@{host}/{targets}

Simply use mastodon:// or toot:// if access in an insecure server and mastodons:// or toots:// if accessing a secure one (https).

Parameter Breakdown

Variable Required Description
token Yes The Access Token associated with the Application you created (in Mastodon's Account Settings). Your token MUST have at the bare minimum write:statuses access. Additionally provide write:media if you intend to provide attachments.
visibility No The Mastodon visibility you want to operate in. Possible values are
direct for Private Direct Messages)
private for posts that will be visible only to followers
unlisted for posts that will be public but not appear on the public timeline
public for public posts
default for post visibility based on the accounts default-visiblity setting.

By default if toot:// is used, it is presumed you want a public post (unless you explicitly specify the visibility= flag. However if you use mastodon:// then your post by default will take on the default-visibility associated with your account unless explicitly over-ridden here with the visibility=.
batch No By default images are batched together. However if you want your attachments to be posted 1 toot per attachment, set this to False.
sensitive No If this is set to Yes then any attachments provided will be marked as sensitive. By default this is set to No
spoiler No Optionally provide spoiler text that should be associated with the status message posted.
language No Optionally provide a ISO 639 language code with your status post. E.g. en, fr, etc.
key No Prevent duplicate submissions of the same status. Idempotency keys are stored for up to 1 hour, and can be any arbitrary string. Consider using a hash or UUID generated client-side.

Smart Processing

With Mastodon, routing of direct messages entirely depends on the @users identified in the message body. For this reason it's possible to post a status message like:

apprise -b "Hey guys, this message was sent from Apprise" \
   "mastodon://accesskey/host/@caronc?visibility=direct"

This will cause the message body to be created as

Hey guys, this message was sent from Apprise @caronc

It's important to state that if you identify /@users entries on your Apprise URL, they will be appended into the message so they are notified. However, that said, if you prepare a URL for direct visibility and do not provide a user. Apprise will look up your own credentials automatically and send the message to yourself.

# Here is an example where we're specifying a `direct` message
# as our intentions are to create a DM.  This will cause Apprise to look
# ourselves up and notify our own account.  You MUST have the
# 'read:accounts' scope enabled on your Mastodon application or this
# will not work.
#
# Also consider there is overhead with this call as it requires an
# extra hit on the website to get your data.  For efficiency, it's
# ideal that you specify your @user if this is your intention.
apprise -b "Hey guys, this message was sent from Apprise" \
   "mastodon://accesskey/host/?visibility=direct"

Apprise is also smart enough to pre-scan the message being posted and if it finds a @user identified in the body that is also identified in the URL, it will NOT be added to the end of the body. Hence; consider a status message that reads:

apprise -b "Hey @caronc, Thanks for showing me the Apprise plugin!" \
   "mastodon://accesskey/host/@caronc?visibility=direct"

In the above case, @caronc is identified as both a target to be delivered to AND also already exists in the status message being sent. As a result, no @caronc will be appended at the end and the message will be sent as is.

Hey @caronc, Thanks for showing me the Apprise plugin!

Let's do one more example just to show other cases:

Consider the following:

apprise -b "Hey @caronc, Thanks for showing me the Apprise plugin!" \
   "mastodon://accesskey/host/@caronc/@joe/@sam?visibility=direct"

The following has 3 people set up as targets, but it has already identified 1 of them in the message. The other 2 are automatically appended to the end of your status message:

Hey @caronc, Thanks for showing me the Apprise plugin! @joe @sam

Example

Send a Mastodon toot:

# Assuming our {AccessKey} is T1JJ3T3L2
# Assuming our {Host} is noc.social
apprise -vv -t "Test Message Title" -b "Test Message Body" \
   "mastodons://T1JJ3T3L2@noc.social"

Send a Mastodon DM to @testaccount:

# Assuming our {AccessKey} is T1JJ3T3L2
# Assuming our {Host} is noc.social
# our user is @testaccount
apprise -vv -t "Test Message Title" -b "Test Message Body" \
   "mastodons://T1JJ3T3L2@noc.social/@testaccount?visibility=direct"

Send a Mastodon DM to ourselves using the built in smart-detection:

# Assuming our {AccessKey} is T1JJ3T3L2
# Assuming our {Host} is noc.social
apprise -vv -t "Test Message Title" -b "Test Message Body" \
   "mastodons://T1JJ3T3L2@noc.social/?visibility=direct"

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